


Some Constants

by cloverpaloma



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Grantaire-centric, M/M, Old Age, a little bit sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-18 21:29:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16525004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloverpaloma/pseuds/cloverpaloma
Summary: Grantaire is thankful for the constants in his life.





	Some Constants

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Les Mis fic, so I hope you enjoy!

He brushes the dirt away carefully, fixes the flowers. It’s busy work, but it keeps him moving, and he knows that’s how Enjolras would have wanted it. God, he can imagine his voice now.

“You have to stay active, Grantaire,” he’d say, digging his bike out from behind the heaps of clutter in their garage. “Inactivity leads to stiff joints and tight muscles.”

At the time, Grantaire had told him that it was funny, because activity of the strenuous variety always made his joints stiff and muscles tight, not the other way around, but now he knows that he was right. 

His knees creak when he tries to stand, so he braces himself on the headstone. He dusts a speck of invisible dirt off the top of the stone, too, to be safe. He steps back, looks over his work. He had missed coming last week when his knee had been aching too badly to do much more than hobble downstairs to the couch, so the gravesite was in need of some attention.

“Well,” he says, leaning down to pick up his cane, “I guess this is it until next time. Try to keep yourself out of trouble. Don’t go starting any fistfights in Hell, love.”

The wind picks up, and maybe it sounds like Enjolras sighing, so he closes his eyes and lets it blow through his hair. The day is warm, the breeze is sweet, and Grantaire is content.

Although, it’s still hard to wrap his mind around it sometimes. Enjolras had lived to eighty-two, but he had always seemed younger. Grantaire, even at three years younger, had always assumed Enjolras would outlive him by at least a decade, carried on by his immeasurable energy and fiery determination. But no, Grantaire was by himself, and had been for…

Damn, it had already been six years. Time flew whether or not they were arguing, it seemed, and intermittent visits from their children kept his spirit bright enough to keep going.

Sophie, his youngest, had offered a room above her garage. It was quiet but close enough to see his grandkids every day and be nearer to his family. It was tempting. He wanted to, desperately, but it was an hour from here. He knew Sophie would be too busy to drive him up here every weekend to visit the grave and spruce it up, and he couldn’t bear to leave longer than he necessary. Coming here, week after week, was a constant, and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to give it up. So he would stay in his big, lonely house, and wait for visits, and visit Enjolras, and keep living.

He hobbles back to his car. Heaven knows why he had let Enjolras choose such a ghastly shade of green; it reminds him of canned peas. Of course, Enjolras had spouted some nonsense about blending with the flora and fauna of the environment to reduce stress on animals, and Grantaire had caved because an old, passionate Enjolras was an old, adorable Enjolras. 

But now he was stuck with his vegetable car, to the endless amusement of Eponine, who waits for him now in the passenger seat. She smiles when he gets in.

“How’s he doing?”

“Driving the devil out of his damn mind,” Grantaire says, trying to get his feet in. “Campaigning on behalf of the poor sinners who aren’t being treated properly. Trying to get the heat turned down, so the poles don’t melt from below.”

Eponine laughs, but it ends up being a cough, and Grantaire pats her ineffectually until she stops. Her lungs are failing, the years of smoking finally catching up, so she’d come to spend the last of her time with Grantaire near the ocean. ‘The air is clearer up here,’ she’d explained, but Grantaire knew she was just lonely. Some things never change, and an emotionally-constipated Eponine is one of them.

“You don’t think he’s in Heaven?” she asks when the coughs die down. “If my memory serves me correctly, you called him a god the first time you saw him.”

“Eh, I heard somewhere that lawyers never make it to Heaven.”

“He did ninety percent of his cases pro bono.”

“Well, a real saint would’ve done all of them for free.”

Eponine just smiles and shakes her head. “Are you taking me for coffee or not?”

“As long as it has some alcohol in it, fine.”

Because the three constants he has in life are Eponine, liquor, and visiting Enjolras. Not bad, overall. Not bad at all.


End file.
